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Common mistakes
Your business needs a sustainable competitive advantage*, something
that’s hard for your competitors to attack. People often want to start a com-
pany because they think they can build something better or cheaper. Those
really aren’t sustainable competitive advantages.
If you can build something better, somebody else can probably build it
better still. If you build something cheaper, your competitors can usually
lower the price. Their prices aren’t always directly related to their costs.
They can always say, “Let’s not burden this product with that cost, let’s as-
sign that cost somewhere else.” People already in the business will react when
you threaten their market share.
Beware of ideas that are self-limiting. For example, I’ve heard people say,
“My costs are low because I’ll have a simple operation. I don’t have all that
high overhead.” They may very well nd they’ll have the same disadvantage
as their business grows. Have the utmost respect for your competitors.
People often overestimate the importance of a patent, a specic technol-
ogy, or a contract. Certainly these factors can be important, but often they’re
insufcient drivers for success. What about Manufacturing capability, dis-
tribution channels, and customer recognition? If these other drivers loom
large or if your idea requires substantial investment, you may do well by
structuring your business to team with a company that has already invested
in the right kind of business infrastructure.
* Soul-searching – deep examination of one’s motives, convictions, and attitudes
New Focus™ is a leader in developing, manufacturing and delivering innovative, high-per-
formance, quality, easy-to-use photonics with exceptional support and service for industrial
and research applications across the world.
Competitive advantage – condition which enables a company to operate in a more efcient
or otherwise higher-quality manner than the companies it competes with, and which results in
benets accruing to that company.
Task 1. Find the English equivalent of the following Russian expressions;
nd and read the sentences from the text with these expressions.
Стабильныйбизнес,обслуживаниеклиента,большойасортимент,на
раннейстадии,конкурентоспособность,обычныерестораны,ориен
-
тированныйнавзаимоотношения.
75
Planning to Hit Target
Most salespeople are set targets. They are expressed in monetary terms,
such as turnover and margin, but can also be expressed in terms of market
share, new customers, client retention* and growth.
When you are set a target for the rst time it is a bit meaningless. You
may be told, for example that your target is Ј400,000. How are you supposed
to use this on daily basis as a way of deciding what to do? Every day you
have choices, but whatever you decide to do you still have to hit your target
by the end of the year. Atkinson’s pragmatic approach to selling was always
that if I hit my targets they would leave me alone. Sales managers are tar-
geted to achieve the sum of the individual team members’ targets, so if you
are below target your manager is watching you.
So, we need to take the target of Ј400,000 and break it down. To do this
we need an estimate of your average order value. Let’s say in this example
we have an average order value of Ј5,000. We now know we need to secure
80 orders during the year to reach our target.
Let’s also assume a conversion rate of 1 in 4. We therefore need to get in
from of 320 customers during the year to ensure we book 80 orders. Assum-
ing there are 40 working weeks in a year; we do this to ensure we hit target
before New Year Eve and have a bit of lee way** to take care of unforeseen
circumstances. So, we need an average of 8 appointments per week.
Let’s say that we, on average, need to contact 5 potential customers to
secure an appointment. Then need to be calling 40 potential customers per
week to get those 5 appointments. We have made various assumptions here,
but we have done is to convert the Ј400,000 target into an activity target that
is manageable.
Our assumption should be based on previous activity so the other learning
point here is to measure all our sales activity so we can plan more accurately.
Your manager as a planning resource
Many salespeople prefer to be managed from a distance and are more
than happy for their sales manager to leave them alone. This is a mistake for
several reasons:
– Most salespeople were promoted because they were successful at sell-
ing. They say that if you want to be good at something nd somebody who
is already good at it and do what they do. Compare your manager’s selling
style to your own. What do you need to improve or do differently?
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